End Plateau killings now, Atukum urges FG

By Polycarp Auta

Retired Rear Admiral Bitrus Atukum, the former Military Governor of Plateau, has called on the Federal Government and the security agencies to find lasting solution to the incessant killings in the state.

Atukum, who govern Plateau between January 1984 and August 1985, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Jos.

The retired senior military officer was reacting to the recent killings in Bokkos and Bassa Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state.

Atukum, who decried the wanton destruction of houses, farmlands and other properties, alleged that the attacks were geared towards land grabbing and economic sabotage.

He called on President Bola Tinubu to dish out specific instructions to the military in handling the current security challenges in Plateau and beyond.

“These attacks are majorly aimed at land grabbing and ensuring that the people of Plateau remain hungry and poor.

“The attackers have been using same pattern; attack, kill, chase people away and later on take over their houses and lands.

“In the past, they deceived us with harder-farmer clashes, but how can you have a clash in somebody’s bedroom? These people go into people’s bedroom in the villages.

“These people come down from the hills, commit havoc and disappear, and that is where they hide their weapons.

“So, I call on the President to order the army to go and fish them out from their hiding places. That’s the only way to end this mindless killings in our communities,” he said.

The former governor decried that the ongoing attacks were also aimed at depriving the locals from farming, which is their main occupation, thereby subjecting them to hunger and poverty.

“We are now in the farming season and we won’t have sufficient number of farmers that will be farming on their lands.

“Of course, that will lead to perpetual hunger and poverty; the ordinary man is presently bearing all this brunt of these killings.

“It will be worse if nothing is done. That is why we have to speak out at all levels against this evil,”he said.

Atukum, who called on the residents of Plateau to defend themselves, however, warned them not to take laws into their hands.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)